American Museum of Natural History

The trip to the museum was both educational and rewarding. I took many pictures as you can see to your right. My group partners were Ana, Brandon, and myself. We started our journey to the African animals and finished off by the Gottesman hall of planet earth doing our research work. I saw the Asian mammals which included the Indian lion, black buck, axis deer, bird named Indian roller, etc. I also saw a Japanese home that was made up of paper, wood, and bamboo, and a Korean home that had a scholars studio and a women doing her bidding. I also saw the Ainu people that had women’s lips tabooed blue to protect them from bad spirits and to show they are of marriageable age to get married. Our last stop was to the Gottesman hall of planet earth where we answered our student field journal handout given by Dr. Smith. I learned what causes climate and climate change and some are, the green house gases which consist of four different gases: nitrogen and oxygen, water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Water vapor it’s the most importuned one of the green house gases without it the earth’s temperature would be below freezing with it the planet is warm enough to support life. I took a picture of the diagram at the right that shows how green house gases help warm the atmosphere. I also saw read about the tree rings and the thick ring means that it shows rapid growth during warm wet years, thin ring shows slow growth indicating cold dry years, and the single tree records only local climate. I have a picture of the diagram on tree rings at the right. Since carbon dioxide is a green house gas it has been responsible for the warming, and I took a picture of the graph you can see it at the right and it shows that in the year 1850 industrial revolution started and that effected the temperature rise and by 1970 it’s already more than 350 parts per million atmospheric carbon dioxide. These are some of the information I picked up at the Gottesman hall. I have seen the film, An inconvenient truth by Al Gore and went to the museum and I find the museum to be more believable when it comes to Global warming because the film gave me a visual experience, however the museum gave me a hands on experience where I had to do some of the research on my own, and do a self analysis on the information that was provided to me at the museum. I was also able to see at the museum how nature can be transformed to media and that is when I saw the African and Asian mammals they were visual I was able to see them and we also saw a film on different tribes and what survival techniques they used that was media to me because it transformed their habitation and their way of life to visual film and audio and this is how their way of life was communicated to me. When i went to the Asian and African mammals I saw the way humans took what was once real and made it into a glass wall of different animals in their environment this is the way humans denaturalize nature ,but at the same time were capable of making the landscapes and the animal homes look very real , and even figures of the animals was portrayed very real to me and this is the way humans renaturalize nature.

An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore

The atmosphere is thin making it the vulnerable part of the earth. When it's thin enough it's able to change the composition; however the thin layer is now being thickened by pollution and therefore heating it up causing an enormous amount of global warming. Glaciers everyday is being broken of. Al Gore says that forty percent of the people on earth will face a shortage of water, and even the ice has stories to tell us like the warming of two ice ages. This is how the temperature of the earth works, the more carbon dioxide the warmer the temperature will get and thus trapping more heat from the sun. Carbon dioxide is now way above the 300 parts per million, and in the next fifty years and even less carbon dioxide will continue to go up. Gore says, “It is deeply unethical'' if we allow this to continue. In the year of 2005 it was the hottest in temperature including the oceans, thus the oceans got warmer resulting in stronger storms. Hurricane Katrina went to the warmer waters- as the temperature in the water increases so too the wind velocity increases thus resulting in stronger hurricanes. Global warming also causes droughts not just floods, and when the temperature raises soil evaporation rises too. Arctic is experiencing faster impacts on global warming and in the next fifty to seventy years the frozen ice will be completely gone from the North Pole to Arctic Ocean we are getting a faster heat up. Since we are experiencing changes in patterns is therefore affecting our seasons and the ecological niches are being affected by global warming too. We have new diseases emerging since the last quarter century. Antarctica has the largest mass of ice if it breaks it is an alarm sign for global warming and now it has been broken little by little in the last 15-20 years. The ice shelves by January 31, 2002 scientist saw it completely disappear. Land based ice is starting to fall in water by melting. In Green land pools are being formed. Scientist thought if the ice sinks in the water it will make the water into ice, but they were wrong because it only went tunneling deep down. Humans have to respond to warnings that are being affected by global warming says Al Gore. Three factors that are causing the collision with the earth: 1) population is putting more pressure on earth. 2) New technologies with old habits have a big consequence on our environment. 3) People are capable of sitting and not responding until danger occurs and that is not good at all. If we use efficiency technology it will add up and we would be below. Al Gore's last remarks are that we have to act together to solve the problem. We did great things before like solved the hole in the ozone layer, put down the communist, and many others. Gore says this is a "Moral issue-rise again to secure our future." I enjoyed this film very much and i would recommend those who are unaware of global warming should watch this scientific film and let others do the same. Let us bring change to the world.

GNOSTICISM

The word Gnosticism comes from the Greek word meaning knowledge, and “Gnosis refers to knowledge of the second kind’’ (Wikipedia, 12). Which means it’s an experience that someone had with the divine and therefore was able to receive a certain amount of knowledge. “This knowledge, to those who were capable of it, was the means of redemption” (Wikipedia, 13). In the matrix Morpheus tells Neo if he takes the red pill he will have the knowledge to know everything that there is about the matrix. Manichaeism conceives darkness and light and they both have a conflict and the light is entrapped in the darkness and “at the end of which the kingdom of light will prevail over darkness’’ (Wikipedia, 4) this refers to the allegory of the cave in which the sun in the end will show the prisoners true reality and that they have been blinded by the darkness which are the shadows. The kingdom of light refers to Neo who will win over the evil matrix which refers here to darkness. “Ptahil, the god of darkness who had a hand in creating and henceforward rules the material realm” (page4). This refers to the agents who created the machines and were ruling over the humans this refers to the material realm. In the allegory of the cave the prisoners were chained in one place and could not move their limbs and all they can see where the shadows which is the darkness that made the entire cave dark ,and therefore they knew nothing of reality only to name the shadows of puppets which they saw, so too like it says that the material world is intoxicated by the powers of darkness “ to keep elements of the light trapped inside it, or literally to keep them in the dark , or ignorant; in a state of drunken distraction”(page4). The matrix were all about being hidden and not knowing the truth and the reality of the real world, therefore Neo since he is the one has the power to eliminate the matrix and bring back Zion which is a world where people know the truth like it says her that the Aeons “encounters the ignorance of the world of lack and interacts to rectify the error of ignorance in the world of materiality” (page 11). “Gnosticism holds that world is controlled by the evil archons” so too by the matrix the gate keepers were the matrix at first who were controlling the humanistic world, and by the allegory of the cave the puppets were controlling the cave, but to the eyes of the prisoners they were shadows in order to deprive them from the truth. This article was very interesting in the way that these sprits some are good and some are evil and all have different intentions for this world. At first I did not understand it but as I continued reading on it became clear to me what Gnosticism was all about and how it came to being and what it is now in our modern times.

“The Allegory of the cave”

Plato writes in his article about prisoners in a dark cave who are chained and can not move their limbs. The only thing they see is shadows from the puppets of different various animals and plants. They view the shadows real than the puppets, and when one of the puppets speaks the prisoners believe that the words are coming from the shadows. The prisoners dislike those who can not name each shadow as quickly as they can. When the prisoner is released into the sunlight he will see the shapes passing by and he will see it less real than their shadows. He will see that the “sun is the cause of all the things that he has seen’’ (plato-wikipidea). The prisoners would not want to be freed because if to go back to the cave he would have to accustom his eyes to see the darkness. And he will not be able to name the shadows as quick as his other fellow members. The prisoners are the humans, the cave is the matrix, and the sunlight is Zion. The puppets are the agents who make the shadows to have the prisoners/humans lock in their positions so they don’t see the reality and the truth. The prisoners are chained in the cave and they can not move their limbs, so too the humans are in the cave of matrix that are like the slave that can not small or taste. The escape prisoner who sees the sun is like Neo who escapes the world of matrix to see the truth by taking the red pill. Neo sees the sun and his eyes start to hurt him, and that’s because he has never used them properly since he only saw a false reality which in his mind he thought was real. The prisoner never used his eyes to see the truth, and once he did his eyes started to hurt him and thus he wanted to go back, but Neo continues into the sunlight unlike the prisoner who wants to go back. The free man who decided to return to the cave was Cypher he wanted to return to the world of matrix, since he felt it was better to be living a life of slavery than to be a free man of decisions and choices. A slave can not think for himself a higher being has to think for him so too the agents/machines wanted to control the human race. In the world of the sun you see reality and thus you have a mass amount of knowledge and your mind starts to understand the truth. Some humans It’s hard to make the change you rather have what you were accustom to, so like the prisoner you go back to the cave. Neo also thought the cave was true reality however when he left the cave and saw the sunlight he understood that the cave was evil only to control your thinking and understanding.

please post all your comments about the matrix in here. thank you.

THE MATRIX.

Wow, what a movie! The Matrix was packed with lots of action and thrill. I loved every minute of it. The reason the movie was called The Matrix is because Morpheus defines the word matrix as a "World that blinds you from the truth, and it's like a slave that’s born into bondage that cannot small or taste." The movie Matrix is all about controlling the humans from the agents named Jones, Smith, and Brown. The agents are machines themselves and their one objective is to destroy Zion which is the last human city. Morpheus believes that Neo is "the One"; Neo is the man who will have limitless powers and will be able to have control over the Matrix. Neo goes by the name of Mr. Thomas Anderson who works in a big company as a computer programmer thus the agents capture him and ask him to join them or else face his death, however Neo turns down the offer and they instill in his body a poisonous creature. Neo is taken to see Morpheus by the other crew members of his, and Trinity takes the creature out of him with an electrical machine. Morpheus offers him the chance to learn the truth about Matrix. Neo accepts the offer by taking a red pill which will help him to know everything there is about the Matrix; however Neo does not know what he is getting himself into. Morpheus and his crew start the procedure by putting him in a liquid chamber connected with wires. This will allow him to have a socket connected to his skull in order to allow him to have access to the matrix world, and to also have other information stored in his mind, like certain fighting techniques in order to fight against the agents. “The human race is not free as long as the Matrix exits”, says Morpheus to Neo on their trip to training. They learned many skills like Kong- fu, having a faster speed against the agents, paying attention and not getting distracted- for example by the blonde woman in the red dress ,since getting distracted can lead you to danger like the computerized agent who was standing behind Neo with a gun when they were training. Morpheus takes Neo to the Oracle who says that perhaps he is waiting for something and that Morpheus believes that he is “the One” even to the point to sacrifice his own life. She also says that he will have to make a decision either to save his life or the life of Morpheus. While the crew are about to go to their ship they are ambushed by the SWAT and the three agents who capture Morpheus while the others escape. They later find out that they were betrayed by one of their crew members by the name of Cypher who felt it was better to be in the world of Matrix. This resulted in the death of some crew members and only Neo, Trinity, Morpheus, and Tank were left alive. Tank kills Cypher in the end. Neo and Trinity save Morpheus from the agents, but when Morpheus and Trinity exit the Matrix through the phone line the agent ambushes Neo before he can even leave. Both are fighting and Neo defeats him by having a train run over him, however he possesses another body and Neo escapes while he runs all over the city the agent shots him and he falls. Trinity believes that he is the one, since the Oracle told her she would fall in love with “the One’’ she kisses him and he comes to back to life and realizes that he is” the one” and kills the agent while the other two run away. Neo promises that he will save the people from the Matrix since anything can happen. I really enjoyed this movie a lot and I would most definitely recommend it to others.